Bill Gabbard, the Rev. Jonathan Hall and the Rev. Allie Osborne’s faith led them to Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, and Mercer University was a chapter along each of their journeys. The Mercer alumni are members of the ministerial staff at the Atlanta church, which has its own storied history of Mercer connections.
“It goes back to (Monroe) Swilley, who is one of our former senior pastors and who figured very prominently in Mercer’s operations on campus and in the city,” Gabbard said. “A lot of folks associated with Mercer have been members, staff and deacons in our congregation over the last 30 or 40 years.”
Monroe Swilley Jr., for whom the library on the Atlanta campus is named, was the pastor at Second-Ponce for many years before becoming president of the new Atlanta Baptist College in 1969. During the planning stages of the college, Swilley was its greatest advocate, and the church was a major financial supporter. When Atlanta Baptist College merged with Mercer in 1972, Swilley became vice president of the Atlanta campus and served in that role until his retirement in 1989.
A number of other Mercerians have been involved in Second-Ponce de Leon over the years, including former senior pastor the Rev. Dr. James “Dock” Hollingsworth and former associate pastor the Rev. John Uldrick, both of whom moved to new churches this summer.
Dr. Hollingsworth earned his bachelor’s degree at Mercer in 1984, his Doctor of Ministry at Mercer’s McAfee School of Theology in 2008, and was an assistant professor, assistant dean and admissions director at McAfee prior to his role at Second-Ponce. Uldrick earned his Master of Divinity at Mercer in 2002 and is currently in the Doctor of Ministry program.
Gabbard, Hall and Osborne are continuing Second-Ponce’s Mercer legacy in their roles as minister of music, minister of community and student discipleship, and minister of missions and children’s discipleship, respectively.
From Army band to church choir
Gabbard earned bachelor’s degrees in history and music at Mercer in 1981. He met his wife, Mary Lynn — a 1980 business graduate — there, and they’ve been married for 42 years and have five children and eight grandchildren.
During college, many of Gabbard’s friends were active in Baptist ministry, with most considering careers as ministers or working in church music. He wasn’t as sure of his path, so he went to the University of Iowa to earn a master’s degree in vocal performance.
He taught voice at University of Nebraska’s Omaha campus for a year before another unique opportunity came along. He auditioned and was selected for the Soldiers’ Chorus of the U.S. Army Field Band in Washington, D.C., launching a 31-year career with the Army in 1987.
“We were tasked with community relations and public relations and performed public concerts all over the U.S. — 200 concerts per year. My traveling took me away from home probably 120 days out of the year,” he said. “I did that for most of my adult life.”
Knowing he couldn’t stay with the Army forever, he started looking for new jobs around 2016 and felt called to go into church music. Second-Ponce was one of the churches with which he interviewed. School of Music Associate Dean Stanley Roberts, who was a member of the Mercer Singers with Gabbard when they were Mercer students, connected Gabbard with Dr. Hollingsworth, opening the door for the two to meet during Mercer’s 2018 Homecoming.
Gabbard joined the church as minister of music in 2019. In this role, he plans the order of the worship services, selects hymns and other musical pieces, and directs the church’s choir and orchestra.
“Taking over the music program of a church that has such a wonderful history of excellence of traditional church music is a great privilege and blessing,” he said. “I love working in a congregation and with ministry colleagues who all have the same kind of philosophy in worship each Sunday. This is definitely a congregation where traditional Baptist ministry is celebrated and embraced, and I’m happy to be a part of it.”
He said one of the most rewarding parts of his work is building relationships with congregants.
“I feel really strongly about choir being a small group ministry and one that impacts the congregation every Sunday. I enjoy that,” he said. “We love being together, sharing prayer concerns and doing all the things that a classic small group ministry does together, and bonus, we get to sing together.”
Helping youth grow in their faith
Both of Hall’s parents attended seminary at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, but he didn’t think much about going into ministry until he was in college. He graduated from Wofford College with a bachelor’s degree in English in 2020.
“Only really during COVID lockdown did I have time to think, without the distractions, this is what I want to do with my life,” he said.
Hall knew about Mercer because his great-grandfather was an alumnus, and he learned about McAfee School of Theology while working at Passport, a Christian summer camp, during college. A few of his teammates were talking about seminary options, and McAfee kept coming up.
Later in 2020, he moved to the Atlanta area to do an internship at a church and soon after began classes at McAfee. Hall and Osborne had some classes together and partnered on a project. Now, they work together every week at Second-Ponce.
“(Mercer taught me) pastoral care, learning how to actively listen to people and know how to just be a presence that is meaningful and holy,” he said.
Through his connection with Passport camps, Hall was contacted by Uldrick about a youth minister position at Second-Ponce. He was hired on a part-time basis while he finished his Master of Divinity and went full-time as minister of community and student discipleship after graduating in May 2023.
He and wife Milligan — also a 2023 McAfee graduate — got married that same month and had hoped to remain in the Atlanta area.
“(Second-Ponce) very quickly became a place that I fit in and felt very welcome,” he said. “We wanted to put down some roots somewhere, and we figured, why not stay?”
Hall leads the church’s youth group, for grades 6-12, and young adult group, for members in their 20s to 40s, which involves planning Bible studies, classes, volunteer activities, trips and retreats. One of the highlights for the youth group is attending Passport camp each summer.
Hall said it’s been rewarding “just being able to see (youth) learn and grow in their faith and discover new things about the Bible and what it means to be a Christian.”
He also works with the church’s community council to organize events and initiatives to build community inside and outside the church. In addition, he said it’s been gratifying to have the opportunity to preach during worship services, a skill that he learned and gained confidence in through his Mercer studies.
“I hope that I can continue to use the skills that I’ve learned and the passions that I’ve developed as part of who I am in ways that are meaningful and helpful to this congregation,” he said. “My goal is to be continually helpful and useful as a leader who is seeking to use the gifts that I’ve been given and the education that I’ve been fortunate to get as I continue to do this work.”
Alumna with a mission
Osborne’s journey to McAfee School of Theology was a little more unexpected. She earned her undergraduate degree in communications from Christopher Newport University in Virginia.
“I actually wanted to go into politics. I had big plans to be a lobbyist,” she said. “I was in college in 2016 during that election period, and after that, I decided that politics was not the right fit for me, so I started exploring ministry.”
She attended Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond until it closed in January 2019, went to a nearby seminary for a semester and transferred to McAfee to complete the last year of her Master of Divinity degree, graduating in summer 2021.
Through a McAfee job board, she discovered a children’s ministry assistant opening at Second-Ponce, applied and was offered the position. When the church’s children’s minister later left, Osborne took on that role and added minister of community to her responsibilities. Today, she is minister of missions and children’s discipleship.
“Missions is a really big opportunity at Second-Ponce because we have such incredible resources and connections,” Osborne said. “I love the opportunity to be in charge of a missions program. I have a lot of passion for missions work, and I think it’s the core of what the church is supposed to be”
The church does a lot of local mission work, including partnering with a food pantry and rental assistant agency, but also has national and international partners. Every summer, congregants travel to Miami to work with children through an organization called Touching Miami with Love.
In her children’s discipleship role, she plans Sunday school, kids worship, Wednesday night activities, and community events like Vacation Bible School, a fall fest and an egg hunt. She also organizes a parents’ night out program called “Fri-Yays.”
Osborne enjoys the opportunities to preach and teach lectures. While she loves her current work, her long-term goal is to earn her doctorate and go into nonprofit work.
Bill Gabbard, the Rev. Jonathan Hall, the Rev. Dr. James “Dock” Hollingsworth, the Rev. Allie Osborne and the Rev. John Uldrick are among the Mercerians featured in Mercer Illustrated: The Places, People, and Experiences of a Uniquely Impactful University. This coffee table book from Mercer University Press will be released Nov. 5, and pre-orders and orders can be placed online. Mercer faculty, staff and students can receive a 40% discount when they order by phone at (478) 301-2880.
